The invention relates to a door-related hinge member having a cup portion which is to be sunk within a substantially circular mortise in the back of a door, the cup having on its rim an integral flange which extends beyond the cup part and lies against the back of the door, and which has at least two centering projections engaged in bores adjacent the mortise. This hinge member is designed to be installed on either of two doors which differ with regard to the position of the bores for the centering projections relative to the mortise.
The flange on the upper edge of the cup portion of furniture hinges assures that, when the hinge member is set in its mortise in the back of the door, the cup portion will be at the proper depth in its mortise when the flange lies against the back of the door. In other words, this correct depth will be achieved without complex measurement simply by the fact that the cup is pressed into the mortise until its flange lies against the back of the door. In order to assure that the hinge member will be properly oriented on the axis of the mortise (and of the cup part itself), studs project from the bottom of the flange on opposite sides of the mortise which enter into corresponding bores in the back of the door and fix or center the hinge member in its correct orientation. These centering studs can serve simultaneously for fastening the hinge member if they are oversize for the hole and can be hammered or pressed into the door, or also, after being inserted into the hole they can be spread open in the manner of an expansion plug. In such cases the flange can also be referred to as a fastening flange and the studs as fastening studs. In other cases, in which the fixation of the cup in the mortise is produced by protrusions disposed on lateral flats on the cup and made larger than the diameter of the mortise or by areas of the cup that can be forced outward, the studs projecting from the flange serve, as mentioned before, only to secure the correct orientation of the hinge member in the mortise. These studs are then mere centering studs which serve no fastening purpose and therefore they can be made shorter and weaker than fastening studs. At the same time, the size and position of the mortise in the door are, as a rule, the same for different hinges, while the position and size of the bores for receiving the studs, i.e., `bore pattern` formed by the mortise and corresponding holes for the centering studs, can be different for special design reasons or for various specifications of the buyer of furniture hinges, i.e., the furniture manufacturer. Door-related hinge members which are similar as regards the cup part must therefore be made and stocked in several variants differing in regard to the shape and arrangement of the centering studs. This involves relatively high manufacturing costs, because production, e.g., by stamping and pressing from sheet metal or by pressure casting from metal, will require obtaining different tools or molds for each of the variants, and the investment costs can be pro-rated only on the variants they produce but not on the overall production.
The invention, on the other hand, is addressed to the problem of creating a door-related hinge member which is so designed that it can be used without special adaptation or reworking on doors of at least two different patterns of the bores with respect to the mortise that receives the cup.